That was some drive. After 15 hours and nearly 1400km of travelling from our original destination in south London to here, south east of Lourdes in the Pyrenees. Neither of us (myself and Juan) have ridden the Pyrenees before, so it’s with wide-open eyes that we rolled out of Saint Girons, having decided to drive the short distance from our lodgings purely to cut out quite a few flat kilometres and get straight into the climbing. A meandering road through a valley following the track of a river still offered a 45-minute warm-up before the first col of the day.

Now, we set out a rough itinerary of 10 cols to tick off a list of top ten must ride climbs, based on their popularity and inclusion in the Tour de France. Today’s route was intended to be a gentle introduction to the mountains following a tiring day of travelling, so a circular route offering up four cols was planned the night before.

The first col for us was the Col de Trappe (1110m) and boy, did I suffer on this one. The Garmin recording a maximum of 32 degrees, we made a pact to photograph each col sign, as a memory of our conquests. We duly did this at the summit, and then descended to the foot of our next climb of the day, the Col d’Agnes (1570m). Compared to what came before, this was a far tougher ordeal but a magnificent, majestic road that weaved through the tightly packed trees.

Next, and what we thought might be a cheeky final climb. The thing is, looking at roads and climbs on the Michelin map we had was just a little bit misleading, and so was the case with Col de Crouzette (1245m). Neither of us had heard of it before, and it seemed to be because of the lack of any gradient on the lower slopes. A mere 2% opener had us agreeing what a fine little number it was. Our tune soon changed, roughly when the gradient kicked up to 12%, and beyond. Man alive, was it steep. And with many long straight sections there was no respite from the relentless gradient. I was cursing my choice of a racing gear setup, I’m no man for a 39×25, and I literally heaved with all my strength with every single pedal stroke.

After much toiling, we made it to the top. And celebrated by adding in an even cheekier col, the Col de Portel (1432m). The sign indicating just 200m-ish of climbing in 3.6km, we realised it just had to be done. By now however the brilliant blue sky we had set off in earlier had become shrouded with a thick and heavy looking layer of cloud, the temperature dropping also and the onset of rain looking likely. So we hotfooted it to the summit, grabbed the essential photo of us trying not to embarrass ourselves with our fatigued poses, and then stuck the gear in the big sprocket and hightailed it back into town.

Highs:

Ticking off four cols as we set out to do the descents

Charging at 45km along the valley roads

Lows:

Being savaged by a Horse Fly this big >—————————< leading to blood spurting everywhere

Our cheeky final climb being anything but cheeky. It was down right rude

Tomorrow, we ride the Tourmalet…